Duck pond and pine cones.

 Friday was a beautiful sunny day, with a crispness to the air that just begged for outdoor fun.

 So down to Radnor Park we traipsed, with a picnic we ate in the van first, and then onwards to the duck pond.  The kids thought it was marvellous and really enjoyed feeding the various birds clambering for a bit of the foody action. 

 I really enjoyed it too, I'd forgotten how lovely this part of the park is.

 Naturally, a trip to Radnor Park meant a trip to the play park too.  It's a small play park, but it has some lovely pieces of play equipment.  Rye and J were very taken with the spinning rain maker, and J like the "drums".  This UFO-esq object is a roundabout and that swivels round at different heights depending where you sit in it.  Rye, loves all things that spin.  The only slight marr was the older children who had the day off school and were monopolising the park although they were polite enough and one lad did remind another not to swear because there were litteys about.  **smile**  And I could have gone in for lecturing on smoking, instead I just asked them not to smoke in the park area, no arsey-ness, they just leapt over the fence and smoked on the other side.

 After the park, we walked around the park for a bit, primarily looking for pine cones, to use as bird feeders and to decorate.  Not many pine cones yet; the trees are still laden with them; we did however see a fair number of different fungi/mushrooms.

 I thought initially these were earth balls, but nope field mushooms.

 The cluster of fungi amazed Rye.

 These are ceps.

 This is my usual pine cone collecting tree.  The best and biggest pine cones tend to fall from this beauty... alas he was holding onto them all still.  I guess the mild autumn is confusing the trees a bit.  Nevermind the children had fun racing around the trunk, chasing each other.  And we did find some pinecones, just not as many as I expected.

 No idea what these little black beauties are.

 And so far searching is only bringing up Black Fungus for me, but I shall keep looking.

We were out for a good 3 or so hours, thus once home and minded children gone, Rye snuggled down on the bean bag and watched popeye.

A successful day methinks. **smile**